


you're the cream in my coffee

by buckgaybarnes



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - No Kaiju, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Mutual Pining, Yearning, as much of a pastiche as i can manage, happy new(t) year!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 00:49:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22287256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckgaybarnes/pseuds/buckgaybarnes
Summary: The year is 1920, and Dr. Hermann Gottlieb has taken a liking to the handsome young botanist in his family's employ.
Relationships: Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb
Comments: 11
Kudos: 160





	you're the cream in my coffee

**Author's Note:**

> this is my pseudo-new year's fic (1920-2020 yknow)! sorry it took me so long to post, had a uh LOT of family stuff happen, and then i ended up writing much more than i intended. (sometimes i write stuff that seems so far removed from canon that i'm just like damn, is this even fanfiction anymore)
> 
> this fic is both inspired by and dedicated to samara, whose gorgeous 1920s au art kills me, particularly the one (sexy) 20s au art of newt and hermann in the greenhouse, which forced me to write this in the first place

The room adjacent to Hermann’s has stood vacant for as long as he can remember.

Perhaps longer. He quite prefers it vacant, you see, and more often than not it’s stayed that way through no small amount of meddling on his part: it allows him additional laboratory space when he requires it, just a _fraction_ of extra privacy, and he does not have to worry himself with complaints of the late hours he often keeps. (Many, in the past, have found the clatter of chalk on a blackboard or a simple _quiet_ muttering under one’s breath past dinner offensive.)

It’s why Hermann’s particularly annoyed when—one rather uneventful spring morning, early in the season—he’s woken by the sound of someone clattering about in it.

It could be a member of the household staff, though Hermann doubts it; none of them are _ever_ that noisy, and they know well enough by now it’s a waste of time to bother tidying there in the first place. Which means, unfortunately, it must be a new boarder.

With no hope of returning to sleep, and brimming too fully with annoyance (and, admittedly, curiosity), Hermann dresses and heads down to breakfast. Father is sat at the head of the table as always, likewise _sullen_ as always; Mother equally so, though the bulk of her attention is focused on applying jam to her toast. None of the other boarders are present. Better this way. Hermann always feels as if he can speak more freely when he's not in their presence.

He greets his parents with a nod. “I notice you’ve let the room at last,” he declares.

“Hm,” Hermann’s father says, which means yes. It also means Hermann will have to pry if he wants any more information on his new housemate.

Hermann takes his seat. He unfolds a napkin, delicately, and places it in his lap. “Might I ask to whom?”

Father looks up sharply; Hermann clears his throat, just as delicately as before. “Only we _will_ be sharing such close quarters, Father. It seems proper I should know.”

“Proper,” Father scoffs. He stirs a spoonful of honey into his tea, silent, but Hermann can tell he intends to divulge the information. “Some botanist. _American._ He asked to be brought on as our gardener in exchange for a room and permission to study our grounds.”

A botanist. That _is_ certainly interesting. And an American at that—so far from home. Hermann has long since grown accustomed to individuals of all backgrounds boarding with them (a necessity to afford the property in the first place), even individuals who have expressed an interest in the estate’s extensive gardens, but they’ve never had an _American botanist_ before. Certainly not one seeking a _job_. “Fascinating,” Hermann murmurs. As a scholar himself, he expects they’ll have much to talk about. “I should like to meet him at once. What is the fellow’s name?”

“Geiszler,” Father says.

“Geiszler,” Hermann echoes. He likes the sound of it.

Hermann finishes his tea in a rush (burning his tongue in the process), his toast too, and excuses himself early so he may still have a chance of catching Geiszler in his rooms. It turns out to be in vain: there is no response when he knocks on Geiszler’s door, and—after opening the door a crack, _cautiously_ , because the fool left it unlocked—he discovers it empty.

He also discovers that Geiszler has made himself quite at home already. Well-abused trunks are stacked in the center, half-open, their contents (brightly colored shirts, garish ties, threadbare socks) rummaged through and tossed about the floor. Scholarly texts piled on the dresser next to potted plants Hermann’s never seen the likes of before. A bottle of gin on the nightstand. A pair of dirt-encrusted workbooks in the corner, a leather jacket flung over the back of the desk chair, a gramophone that is certainly not of Gottlieb origin resting atop the desk. Hermann’s spare chalkboards are shoved quite out of sight.

Geiszler seems...an eclectic fellow. And a bloody mess.

Hermann catches the attention of a young maid carrying a stack of sheets down the hallway before she can slip into one of the other boarders' rooms. “Pardon me,” he says. “Do you happen to know where this Geiszler fellow’s got off to?” He jerks his thumb back at Geiszler’s door.

“The greenhouse, I imagine, Dr. Gottlieb,” the maid says. “Dr. Geiszler asked me where he might find it not ten minutes ago.”

Ten minutes. He must’ve left his rooms only moments after Hermann did his own. “Thank you,” he tells the girl.

This time, he _does_ find Geiszler. At least he presumes the man to be Geiszler. There’s a stranger on his hands and knees in the garden by the greenhouse, hunched over a withering flower bush and muttering darkly to himself, a stranger Hermann’s certain he’s never seen 'round these parts of the countryside before. He clears his throat several times before the man takes any notice of him, and when he does—startling, and blinking up at Hermann as if Hermann's charged at him—Hermann nearly reels back in shock himself.

He was correct in his earlier assessment of Geiszler’s being a bloody mess. Mud cakes the man’s unlaced work boots. Dirt stains his hands. Cheeks unshaven. Rather than being combed or slicked back, as per the modern style, his brown hair rests atop his head in soft, untidy waves. He’s forgone a tie in favor of buttoning his collar _scandalously_ low, one suspender strap slipping down over his shoulder, his thick, oversized black eyeglasses smudged and slightly crooked.

Hermann is not surprised by _messy._ It’s just—he didn’t anticipate Geiszler being so damnably _attractive_ on top of that.

It takes Hermann a few seconds to recall he was meant to be saying something to Geiszler, and a few more seconds to realize that Geiszler has been watching him patiently all the while. He relaxes his grip on his cane (which has gone unintentionally white-knuckled) and sucks in a deep breath. “Ah,” he says. “Dr. Geiszler?”

Geiszler stands to his feet, dusting his hands off on his tweed trousers. He’s shorter than Hermann expected, too. Stockier. More—ah— _freckled_. “Please,” Geiszler says, sticking out a still-dingy hand and smiling brilliantly, “just call me Newt. Are you one of the other gardeners or something?”

Yes, American, exactly as Father said. Loud voice. Scratchy. A bit high-pitched. “I should think not,” Hermann says. Perhaps against his better judgement, he shakes Geiszler’s hand; a fine layer of grime attaches itself to Hermann instead. “Dr. Hermann Gottlieb. You're employed by my family. I believe we’ve let you the room next to mine—you made _quite_ the ruckus this morning.”

Embarrassment flits, briefly, across Geiszler’s face. “ _Shit_ ,” he says. (Messy, handsome, and _crude_ , apparently. Hm.) “Sorry about that. I didn’t realize…”

“It’s of no matter,” Hermann says. He gives Geiszler a half-smile of his own. “So long as you don’t go making a habit of it, or play that bloody phonograph too loudly.”

Belatedly, Hermann realizes his mistake. Geiszler draws his hand away. “How do _you_ know I have a phonograph?” he says. He narrows his eyes. “Were you snooping in my room?”

“Not intentionally!” Hermann says quickly. “I was merely—looking for you. The door was unlocked.”

“ _Sure_ ,” Geiszler says, then echoes, wildly sarcastic, “Just don’t go making a _habit_ of it.”

He picks up a small trowel from the ground, adjusts his suspender strap, and marches away.

“Bugger,” Hermann sighs.

He does not see Geiszler for the rest of the day, not until supper, when he deliberately chooses a seat next to the man in hopes of, er, smoothing things over. Geiszler does not look up from his roast potatoes. Not a very promising sign. “Hello again,” Hermann says. He coughs uncomfortably. “Ah. I really am sorry, for earlier. I was simply overeager to meet another—well, another _scholar_ , such as myself, and got carried away. Conversation is terribly dull around here, you’ll come to find.” None of the other boarders have ever taken an interest in Hermann, at least nothing beyond the polite, obligatory manner one regards one’s host with. Most of them are a bit too stuffy and self-important for his tastes, anyway.

Geiszler pushes a potato off of his plate to Mother’s nice tablecloth, smearing herbs and oil across the white lace, but he does lift his head. Hermann’s relieved to see a smile. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you,” he says. “Honestly, I would’ve messed around in your stuff too. What do you mean conversation is dull?”

This is a decidedly pleasing turn of events—Geiszler engaging _him_. “My siblings married and moved out long ago,” Hermann says. “And, ah—” He lowers his voice; Geiszler leans closer. “My father and mother—well, we don’t always agree on things.” 

Geiszler gives him a strange, _shrewd_ look that Hermann can’t quite decipher. “You’re unwed,” he says. It’s not a question.

“Yes,” Hermann says. He’s aware of the strangeness of it for men of his age, or men of _any_ age beyond adolescence—the certain, ah, rumors, _stigmas_ , that tend to follow in whispers—but he has never felt at all tempted into entering into a marriage to stave them off. (Not in the way he feels tempted by men of Geiszler’s pretty sort into flouting the convention entirely.) He continues, a touch cautiously, “And you?”

“Nah,” Geiszler says. The shrewdness has not fled. “Never felt the need.”

“Mm,” Hermann says.

He pushes a potato of his own dangerously close to the edge of his plate, and Geiszler takes a long, slow sip from his glass of water. Hermann watches his stubbled throat as he swallows. “You say you’re a scholar, Dr. Gottlieb. What do you study?”

* * *

Hermann passes the evening pleasantly—and unexpectedly—enough at Geiszler’s side. They discuss Hermann’s work in astronomy over dinner, Geiszler’s own work in biology but preference for botany over dessert (tea and a sponge cake, an oddity, and assuredly a _welcome_ gesture for Geiszler), and—once it becomes apparent their joined enthusiasm is irritating their companions—retire to the library for drinks, privacy, and a sharing of their histories.

“Strictly speaking,” Geiszler says, “I’m _only_ American by way of—well, to borrow the terminology, _nurture_ , not nature. Dad moved us from Germany—”

Hermann starts; he sets down his glass of brandy. “By Jove—you don’t say!”

He would not have guessed it of Geiszler. The man’s surname notwithstanding (the origin of which Hermann was quite unable to pin down until now), his accent speaks to pure, unbridled, brash Americanism. Not a hint of German. Hermann can’t say he’s disappointed to meet another countryman out here in the English wild.

Geiszler has flung himself across a chaise as if he intends to take up residence in it, and now he fixes Hermann with a bright smile. It warms Hermann more than any alcohol ever could. “I bet we have that in common, Dr. _Gottlieb_.”

“I did my schooling at Oxford,” Hermann agrees. “Though we’d moved to England long before the start of the war.”

“Yes,” Geiszler says. “The war.”

His eyes drift, conspicuously, to Hermann’s left leg, and Hermann snorts. He raps his cane against his ankle. “It’s nothing so romantic as what you’re thinking, I’m afraid. Childhood illness. I’m quite lucky I can move it at all.” He coughs, stretches the leg out across a footstool to punctuate his point. It was the injury, in fact, which prevented Hermann from even considering following in the path of his elder brother and enlisting. “But yes—England. Father’s business affairs proved to be quite unsuccessful here, unfortunately, so we’ve resorted to taking in boarders such as yourself. Which reminds me, Dr. Geiszler—I interrupted you.”

Geiszler waves him off. “You didn’t interrupt much. I’m abroad compiling research for a book I’m gonna write on European flora. I was told—in town—that your family keeps a keen greenhouse and I might want to start there. They were right. That’s all.” He clinks the ice in his glass against the sides, and his smile returns as something more playful. “Alright, compiling research _and_ dodging the nutty booze ban back home. This is the first decent bit of anything I’ve had in over a month.”

“Americans,” Hermann sniffs.

“Cheers, pal,” Geiszler says. He knocks their glasses together and tosses back the rest of his brandy with a particular relish.

They wait until the fire in the hearth dies and they’re both feeling pleasantly hazy before they mutually agree to retire to their rooms. Hermann, seized by the sudden strange desire to act _gentlemanly_ , sees Geiszler all the way to his door. “I should like if you’d join me tomorrow evening similarly, Dr. Geiszler,” he says, as Geiszler slouches against his doorframe. “I confess I find your company terribly stimulating.”

“I told you to call me Newt,” Geiszler says, and then, with a wink, “ _All_ my friends do. Goodnight, Hermann.”

Hermann is lulled to sleep by the muffled music of Geiszler’s phonograph curling through the wall, an uncharacteristic smile on his face.

* * *

Geiszler is once more absent from breakfast the next morning, so Hermann wraps himself in a light-colored wool coat—the spring is young, and still carries an undercurrent of chill—and requests tea for two be brought out to the garden patio. It’s in terrible disuse, ivy and moss and wisteria creeping across the stone and the metal chairs, but he imagines Geiszler will like it just fine. He’ll likely prefer it that way, in fact. He finds Geiszler in the greenhouse from there with a sketchbook propped open on his knee.

“Good morning,” Hermann calls.

“Huh?” Geiszler says. He looks up, dislodging both sketchbook and glasses, the latter slipping down his freckled nose. There’s ink and dirt smudged on the side of it. “Oh! Hermann. Good morning.”

Hermann finds himself suddenly regretting the coat; he does not make a habit of entering the greenhouse, and routinely forgets how bloody sweltering the temperature is kept. He shrugs it off entirely when he reaches Geiszler’s side. “I thought you might consider taking tea with me,” he says. “I’ve had it brought out here for us.”

“Oh, swell,” Geiszler says. He looks embarrassed. “Uh—I don’t really drink tea though, so…”

He’s pushed his sleeves up to work, and Hermann notices—for the first time—the long, elaborate swirls of ink up his forearms. Tattoos. The likes of which Hermann’s never seen before. “How lovely,” he murmurs, distracted.

Geiszler gives a laugh, sticks his fountain pen behind his ear, and rolls up the cuff of his right sleeve to allow Hermann to ogle the ink properly. “Aren’t they something?” he says. “Different plants I’ve studied—reptiles—I like this one best.” He points to a bluish jellyfish, its tendrils curling down as deep as his wrist. “I saw one of these _up close_.”

“Incredible.”’ Unthinking, Hermann reaches out to graze his finger across the art, but catches himself in time. “Ah,” he stammers, “did—are these your designs?”

He gestures to Geiszler’s open sketchbook, laying on the cobblestone at their feet. Geiszler has sketched half of one of the fragrant roses Mother is so terribly proud of. It’s good—better than anything Hermann could produce. “Nah,” Geiszler says. “Well—sort of. I did the basic conceptual artwork. I could never pull off anything _this_ good.” He pulls his sleeve back down. “Your tea is probably getting cold.”

“Oh—yes,” Hermann says.

Geiszler is predictably charmed by the overrun patio when Hermann shows him to it and spends several minutes cooing over the ivy as if it can hear him. He’s less pleased with the tea, which he takes one sip of before wrinkling his nose endearingly, but he does stuff an alarming amount of the teacakes into his trouser pockets. “For later,” he says through a mouthful of one.

There is blue frosting at the corner of his mouth. Hermann aches to wipe it away.

* * *

_He is strange_ , Hermann pens in his journal that night.

Geiszler joined him in the library after dinner, as per Hermann’s request, and (after he’d imbibed a healthy quantity of Father’s nicer whiskey) ranted for what felt like _hours_ on topics Hermann didn’t even know one could have opinions on. Fish, for example. Shoe polish. Films, of which Hermann’s seen none, whereas Geiszler’s seen plenty. When that ended, he proceeded to cycle through a catalogue of ragtime on the dusty, out-of-tune piano shoved away in the corner, banging at the keys with all the grace of a child. Then he began pawing through the bookshelves and stacking up the ones he declared would be useful _for his studies_. When he finally allowed Hermann to walk him to his rooms (for he’d gone back in for a decidedly _un_ healthy round of whiskey), he played his records at full volume until a gentleman boarding down the hall pounded on his door and shouted for him to stop.

His room’s been silent for twenty-three minutes. Hermann can only assume he’s fallen asleep. (Or, more likely, slipped into a drunken stupor.)

Strange, and loud, and yet—so terribly _fascinating_. _He knows so much_ , Hermann writes, _and yet he hardly acts it_. And he is beautiful, of course: that much is quite obvious. His soft hair—his strong, colorful arms—the glint of his easy smile—the way his trousers _cling_ to him—

Hermann sets down his fountain pen and snuffs out the oil lamp he keeps on his desk. It’s improper to indulge in such thoughts about a man he scarcely knows, let alone one living under his _roof_. 

* * *

Another day. Hermann takes his tea at the patio once more with a stack of blue cakes set aside for Geiszler. He does the same the next day. And the day after that. And after that.

On the thirtieth day—thirty days of fantasizing about licking blue frosting from Geiszler’s pink lips, thirty days of good-natured arguments and off-tune ragtime by the library fireplace, thirty days of dozing to the sound of Geiszler’s records and his loud, equally off-tune humming, thirty days of periodically summoning Geiszler to his room under false pretenses ( _really, it’s no rush, quite foolish really, only I hoped you might help me identify this, er, plant, from the west gardens_ ) just for the excuse to experience his impromptu biology lectures—Geiszler, while stealing bits of the flaky pastry Hermann brought out for himself for breakfast, finally deigns to extend an invitation of his own to Hermann.

“Would you like to watch me work?” he says.

Hermann always watches Geiszler work. He takes convenient walks by the garden when he knows Geiszler is toiling away over a flower bed, bent at such an angle his cotton trousers would make a lesser man weak in the knees; by the greenhouse, when he knows Geiszler’s sleeves are pushed up, his brow damp with sweat from the heat, his eyes narrowed in concentration at his notebook; by the small duck pond, when Geiszler is scraping samples of algae into polished jam jars and tossing handfuls of stale crackers to snapping turtles. “I’d like that a great deal, Dr. Geiszler,” he says.

“I _told_ you, pal, it’s Newt,” Geiszler says with a snort. “At least Newton. _Dr. Geiszler_ makes me feel ancient.”

“It’s your title,” Hermann says. “You’ve earned it.”

“Yeah, and you’ve earned being able to call me Newt. C’mon.”

Hermann clears his throat uncomfortably. He drums his fingers against the table. “Newton,” he concedes.

Newton’s face lights up in a smile.

He leads Hermann over to a bit of shrubbery, shapeless, and badly in need of pruning, and retrieves a large pair of sheers from a satchel flung across the grass. “I think these were shaped as birds at one point,” Hermann muses, squinting at the shrubs. “Or—perhaps baskets. They’re meant to be blooming soon.” He touches one tiny green bud. Their last gardener was an elderly man who retired ages ago, before Hermann even breached his twenties, but he can vividly recall the devotion with which the man tended to these very bushes.

“I’m aiming for baskets,” Newton says. He clips off a particularly errant branch. “So—what do you do, Hermann? Why are you still hanging around here?”

Hermann bristles, hand dropping away from the bud. “I _beg_ your pardon?”

“Siblings’ve moved away.” Snip. “You hate your old man.” Snip. “You said yourself there’s no good company.” Newton turns to him with a shrug. “You’re a hell of an interesting fellow. It just seems like you could’ve—I don’t know. Settled down somewhere else by now.”

It’s a fair point. Hermann’s asked it of himself numerous times—why he hasn’t sought the same independence as his siblings, why the very thought of it (of living on his own) makes his chest tighten with something akin to _panic_. “I don’t really know,” he admits. Newton snips off another branch. “Perhaps I’m merely searching for someone to bring with me.”

* * *

For the very first night of his lengthy stay on the Gottlieb estate, Newton is absent from dinner.

It takes Hermann a full course to realize he isn’t merely running late, and another course to begin to actively worry. Father is terribly evasive when Hermann expresses such a worry.

“Yes,” he says, airily, “I asked if he might work late on the grounds—he’ll be dining when he’s finished. You needn’t worry.”

“I see,” Hermann says. He tries not to sound too put out, but must fail miserably, because Father lifts his head and narrows his eyes.

“You’ve been spending a considerable amount of time with that Dr. Geiszler,” he says.

Despite himself, Hermann is caught quite off-guard. He had not considered that his affection for the gardener would be so...obvious, least of all to his father, whom he sees so rarely. (If _he’s_ noticed…) “ _Ah_ ,” he stammers, “ah, yes, I’ve—Newton—Dr. Geiszler is a remarkable scientist, and a remarkable companion. I value his company a great deal.”

Father speaks his next words so low—so _dangerously_ low—that Hermann is forced to strain to hear him. “Do not forget yourself, Hermann.”

Hermann flushes and returns to his dinner.

* * *

In the safety of his rooms, far away from prying eyes, Hermann lights up a cigarette and pens an addition to his old journal entry on Newton. Or, at least—he _intends_ to. In his efforts to faithfully recreate their conversation in the garden, he becomes lost in his own far less faithful romantic fancy: how gently the wind ruffled Newton’s soft hair—how sweet his laugh—how sturdy his hands, fingers, pulling up weeds, curled around the thick wooden handle of the shears. He asked Hermann to call him Newt. Hermann’s _earned_ it, he said.

Hermann squashes his cigarette into an ashtray.

What else has he earned? Surely the right to indulge in a harmless fantasy or two—a fantasy or two Newton would never have to know about.

(Newton, sprawled out in the overgrown green grass of the garden—or perhaps a bed of flowers, yes, the daisies Hermann knows Newton to be fond of through careful observation—one suspender loose, his collar undone, his eyeglasses lopsided; Newton slipping the other suspender down; Newton unbuttoning the rest of his shirt, rucking up his _thin_ undershirt to flash Hermann his inked, sparsely-haired chest, two little rosy pink buds of nipples; Newton popping open the buttons of his trousers to reveal _nothing_ on beneath; Newton holding out his hand to Hermann, smiling, coy, _c’mere, pal_.)

“Newton,” Hermann murmurs, tightening the fist he’s clenched around himself.

(Newton moaning _Hermann, Hermann_ , Hermann touching his sun-warmed skin, kissing his freckles, kissing his _lips_ —)

Hermann spills over his hand with a gasp. He slumps back in his chair.

Ten minutes later, as if it’d been politely waiting for Hermann to finish and catch his breath—as if waiting for its cue—Newton’s phonograph crackles to life next door.

* * *

The Spring warms quickly. Hermann finds Newton in the greenhouse early the next morning, shirtsleeves rolled up as he sketches a flower. He doesn’t turn to acknowledge Hermann. Nor does he even really greet him. “Don’t smoke in here,” is all he says over his shoulder. “It’s bad for the plants. Dangerous.” Newton only ever speaks in such short phrases when he’s got something terrifically important weighing on his mind, or when he’s wholly absorbed in his work; for some reason, Hermann cannot help but sense it is the former today. “The, uh, ash. Whole place could go up like, uh.” He picks up a piece of green oil pastel and shades a leaf on the rose’s stem. “Matchsticks.”

“Apologies,” Hermann says. He flicks his cigarette to the flagstone and grinds it under his cane. Newton does turn back at that, wrinkling his nose.

“I’m gonna choose to _not_ comment on your questionable sanitary habits.”

“Oh, _thank_ you,” Hermann says.

Newton snorts, and sketches another leaf. A strange sort of silence settles between them—a silence that would normally be filled with their good-natured bickering, or inquiries after the other’s studies—that is unceremoniously shattered when Newton suddenly declares “You called out to me last night.”

Hermann’s blood runs cold. He’d evidently been more... _vocal_ than he intended. “Ah,” he says, and—stomach twisting itself into knots—he backs away until he hits one of the fogged-up glass panels of the greenhouse wall. “Did—did I? I don’t recall.” He coughs. “A nightmare, perhaps, about your bloody awful playing—”

Newton snaps his sketchbook shut; he turns his body fully towards Hermann, though he remains kneeling. His eyes are dark and pierce through Hermann like an arrow. “I don’t think that’s it, though,” he says.

“A dream of your own, then,” Hermann says. He pulls another cigarette from the case in his pocket with shaking hands, but fumbles his matchbook. Newton catches it.

“Let me,” he says.

Inching forward, he strikes a match; Hermann lowers it into the flame. When it’s been lit, and the match shaken out, Newton snags it from between his fingers and takes a drag. His lips form a perfect _o_ as he spits out a smoke ring. “I don’t think it was a dream, Hermann,” he says. He offers the cigarette out to Hermann with his right hand.

His left, he places on Hermann’s thigh.

“Dr. Geiszler,” Hermann breathes. He’s warm—too warm. The humidity of the greenhouse is choking him. The smoke is choking him. Newton’s piercing, lustful eyes are choking him, the lazy curl to his mouth, the pink tongue that darts out across his lips. (Hermann can’t look away.) “What—what are you—?”

“It’s Newt,” Newton corrects. His voice has gone oddly low—oddly husky.

His hand glides up towards the button of Hermann’s trousers—

—and abruptly falls away. Newton _springs_ to his feet, quick as lightning, leaving Hermann reeling, dazed, wondering what on _earth_ he could’ve done wrong, but—

“Dr. Geiszler?” someone is calling through the shrubbery, snapping Hermann out of his strange fog of unreality. Household staff—one of the bloody household staff. Likely sent out by Father to ensure Hermann hasn’t _forgotten himself_.

“Yes?” Newton calls, dusting dirt from his knees. He snatches up his sketchbook just as a younger boy—teenager—pushes his way into view. Hermann thinks he recognizes him as the cook’s son.

“Mrs. Gottlieb wondered if you might tend to the east gardens,” the boy says. Hermann detects a flicker of nervousness on the boy’s face he imagines is mirrored perfectly on his own. He wonders what sort of conversation he witnessed between Hermann’s parents before he was sent along—almost certainly about Hermann, almost just as certainly about Newton. “She’ll be hosting company there this week and wants them to be in order.”

“Right,” Newton mutters, staring at the ground. “I’ll—”

He pockets his sketchbook and scurries off; the boy follows suit, with one last indecipherable glance back at Hermann.

Hermann does not notice his cigarette has burned down to a stub until it singes his fingertips, and he drops it, shaking out his hand and cursing more than just the pain.

* * *

Newton avoids him for three days. Predictably. He avoids Hermann at dinner (ducking conspicuously past his usual chair in favor of selecting one at the opposite end of the table, next to a stiff old schoolmaster), and he avoids the library (twice, he’s approached with crumpled sheet music tucked beneath his arm, and twice, he’s reddened and made his excuses once he realizes Hermann is occupying the chaise), and he avoids the patio (his tea going cold, his cakes uneaten, vines already reclaiming his usual chair). He ducks out of sight in the greenhouse when he sees Hermann approaching. He plays his records loud at night, almost surely to pretend he doesn’t hear Hermann knocking softly on his door to find out what he’s bloody done _wrong_.

In return, Hermann begins to avoid _him_ , too. It doesn’t make it all sting any less. He misses Newton.

On the night of the fourth day, once Hermann’s stripped for bed after a lonely walk around the grounds, a lonely dinner, and a lonely evening spent flicking listlessly through old texts in the library, Newton’s phonograph cuts off early. Hermann has just enough time to wonder if that means Newton will be retiring early as well when there is a knock at his bedchamber door so quiet he's half-convinced he imagined it.

Hermann slips into his dressing gown and slippers quickly. He’s not surprised to see Newton slouching in the dim light of the hallway, dressed in striped nightclothes and wringing the hem of his shirt. “Hermann,” he says, simply. It echoes in the silence as if he’s _shouted_ it; Hermann, wincing, fearing being caught by Father and having the situation be _misconstrued_ , ushers him inside quickly.

Newton waits for the door to click shut to continue speaking. He looks nervous—exceedingly nervous. Hermann’s never seen him like this before. He paces the hardwood a few moments (still wringing his shirt) before—finally—stilling with a loud sigh.

“Hermann,” he repeats.

“Well, out with it,” Hermann says

He aims for lightheartedness, which is a mistake. Newton does not smile. “I wanted,” Newton says, “well, I wanted to apologize, is all. I fucked up the other day. _Badly._ I thought—it doesn’t matter what I _thought_.” He rubs his neck. “I’m sorry. My work’s almost finished. After that you won’t ever have to see me again.”

He turns towards the door. _No_ , Hermann thinks, wildly. _No, he can’t_. An uncharacteristic fit of boldness overcomes him, and he says, firmly, too-loudly, “ _No_.”

Newton sways to a halt. Almost as if he’d been waiting for the order.

“You were correct,” Hermann says. “What you thought.” He wets his lips. “Newton. I don’t believe I’ve made my—attraction—to you any secret.”

“Attraction?” Newton echoes wondrously.

“My desire,” Hermann says. He sweeps his eyes across Newton’s body—from his gaping mouth, to his too-big nightclothes and too-big glasses, to his bare freckled ankles—and wets his lips again. “I desire you, Newton, as I’ve never desired anyone before. I—”

He is not given the chance to finish his confession: Newton throws himself into his arms (Hermann drops his cane in shock), breathing out in sharp little gasps, and kisses him.

And how fantastic—how brilliant—a kiss it is. Better, and simply— _more_ than anything Hermann could have ever fabricated in his mind. He dreamt of the softness of Newton’s lips, but not their insistence; the sturdiness of his fingers, but now how gentle they’d be slipping through Hermann’s hair and cradling his jaw; how Newton would moan his name into his mouth, but not how he’d gasp, how he’d squeak, how he’d whimper at the slightest graze of Hermann’s tongue against his.

Hermann’s not sure how they fall onto his bed. Perhaps Newton leads the way; perhaps Hermann does. One moment they’re embracing, the next, Newton lays above him, cast a strange silvery-gold in the moonlight streaming through the undrawn drapes of the window and breezing open the buttons of Hermann’s nightshirt as if they’re nothing. “Have you done this kinda thing before?” Newton whispers.

“Once or twice,” Hermann says. “Classmates at Oxford in my youth. A young man from the village whom Father hired to do the occasional job.” The former were quick—fumbling—boys who had sprawling estates, and summer homes on the lake, and too much money to know what to do with, and who would look at Hermann like he was a perfect stranger the next morning. The latter had a wife. 

He’s so lost in memory he startles, surprised, when Newton begins to kiss his neck. “Mm, I believe it,” Newton says. “You’re gorgeous. I wasn’t even gonna stay a week, and then I saw _you_ , and you asked me to goddamn _tea_ , and…” He punctuates the confession with another messy kiss to Hermann’s neck.

Hermann flushes pleasantly: so Newton had wanted him from the beginning, too, after all, from that very first day. “Oh,” he gasps. “That’s—”

His shirt is pushed roughly from his shoulders. His cotton night trousers follow suit. He feels exposed—bare—obscene, even, with how obviously he’s straining and leaking in his undergarments—but a strange groan rises in the back of Newton’s throat that Hermann’s never heard the likes of before. A groan for _Hermann._

Newton kisses down his throat to his sternum. “Touch me, Hermann.”

Hermann obliges, gladly: he strips Newton of his own nightclothes, flustering and blushing and looking away when he discovers that Newton’s elected to disregard undergarments entirely tonight, and splays one hand across one of Newton’s colorful pectorals, the other across the soft curve of his hip. (All of Newton is so soft and colorful, all of him begging to be grabbed and squeezed and traced over with the tip of Hermann’s tongue.) “Please,” Hermann says, “will you…?”

Newton’s hands begin to explore him along with his lips, kissing and pinching and biting, _experimenting_ like the scientist he is, while Hermann’s own drift closer and closer to the heavy hardness between Newton’s legs. He’s trembling. So is Hermann. “I was lying,” Hermann confesses, as Newton works a spot by his collarbone with his teeth. “Ah—I had called out for you. Unintentionally, I suppose. I was…”

“ _Ha_ ,” Newton says, and he’s grinning, almost lecherously so, when he pulls his head up. “I _knew_ it. Makes what I did a lot less embarrassing.”

“What did you do?”

“Followed your stellar example,” Newton says. “It was great, thinking about you in here, all prim and proper with your hand down your stupid pants. Can I take these off?” He plucks at Hermann’s undergarments. Reeling from the sudden turn of the conversation, Hermann nods shakily. “You got anything we could, uh, you know,” Newton adds, “ _use_. Petroleum jelly, or—hell, vegetable oil, you know, ‘do as the Romans—’”

Hermann blanches. “Dr. Geiszler. _Er._ I don’t imagine I’m quite ready, for—”

“No, no,” Newton says quickly. “Not the whole way. Not—look.”

He pushes Hermann’s legs tight together at the thighs. “Like that,” he says. He’s blushing red to the tips of his ears. “I put the stuff there. And then I—or _you_ could do it to _me_ , I don’t care—” He runs his finger down the dip between Hermann’s thighs, making Hermann shiver. “It feels good. It’s easier, too.”

Hermann considers. “You will have to do it to me on my side,” he finally declares. “Otherwise I’m likely to strain my leg.” He fumbles for one of the overstuffed pillows at his headboard. “One of these by my knee as well.”

“Do it to you,” Newton says, and groans out something that sounds remarkably like _guh_ , face lighting up with hunger. “That’s—keen.”

“There is petroleum jelly in the top drawer of my desk,” Hermann says, “beneath some letters and my journal. _Discreetness_ , you understand, Dr. Geiszler.” He keeps it in there for when he needs—ah—assistance with self-stimulation. Significantly smaller chance of someone stumbling upon it and asking questions than if he were to leave it somewhere out in the open such as his nightstand.

Newton is speedy, overeager, and _noisy,_ clattering around for the bottle like it isn’t bloody one in the morning and they aren’t indulging in a very particular type of vice, and he slicks up Hermann’s thighs with far too much of the cool jelly and misaims in his first few attempts to slip his arousal between them. “Steady,” Hermann murmurs, pressing his hand atop the one Newton’s latched to his waist. Newton’s whole body thrums with excitement—or perhaps anxiety—and where Newton’s chest is glued to Hermann’s back, Hermann can feel his heart hammering away erratically. “Steady, dear boy.”

“Sorry,” Newton laughs. “I’m—uh—I’m a little over-excited.”

He manages to slip between Hermann’s thighs correctly, this time, and scarcely waits for Hermann to relax before he’s rolling his hips eagerly, grunting, gasping, gripping Hermann’s waist so hard it’ll surely bruise. Hermann finds he’d like it to bruise. “Hermann,” Newton says, breath ghosting hot over the shell of Hermann’s ear, “guh—”

Hermann’s head lolls back against Newton’s shoulder, far enough so that he may catch a glimpse of the moonlight glinting against Newton’s fogged eyeglasses, and Newton’s hand slips down instead between Hermann’s legs to palm at him. How strange it all feels—how wonderful, how overwhelming. How unexpected. “Yes,” Hermann whispers before he can help himself. Newton’s fingers are calloused and rough, as quick and as sure in his strokes as he is with his pencil or garden shears. Practiced. Hermann has never been made love to like this before. “Oh, yes, yes—”

Another thrust; another throaty groan, rising deep from within Newton; Newton spills, warm, over Hermann’s skin and the bedsheets. “ _Fuck_ ,” he whines. “Oh, oh—I’m sorry, you were just— Here.”

The warmth of Newton is gone from behind Hermann; instead, a messy-haired and bespectacled mass slinks down the mattress instead, nudging Hermann to his back, rearing above him, then slips between his legs. “Like this,” Newton says, eyes dark, pupils blown, and takes Hermann into his mouth.

It is over very fast.

They lay in bed after, catching their breath and stealing kisses when the urge strikes them. Newton—claiming claustrophobia, and oppressive heat—has kicked off his half of the bedspread Hermann slipped around them in favor of splaying out, quite nude, over the sheets, his arousal soft between his legs, his inked chest damp with sweat, one arm tucked under his head. The paragon of languid debauchery. It’s a terrible distraction for Hermann, but one he can’t say he takes issue with. 

“You understand, of course,” Hermann finally says (the first words he’s spoken since he spilled with a muffled shout into Newton’s sweet mouth), “we must be terribly discreet about this.”

Newton is silent. He rolls over and presses his mouth to Hermann’s shoulder, where he proceeds to leave a trail of messy kisses. “Don’t worry,” he mumbles. “I’m the most discreet man _alive_.”

Hermann chooses not to comment on this. “We must carry on as if nothing has changed,” he says. “You will finish out the remainder of your studies—”

“Only two weeks,” Newton says. He nips at Hermann’s skin. “Week and a half.”

“Regardless,” Hermann says, “you will see them out, in accordance with the conditions you and my father agreed upon.” He swallows. It is foolish to be nervous, now that he knows Newton shares his regard, now that they’ve _acted_ upon it as intimately as they have—and yet— “And—at the end of it, if you will have me, I shall go with you.”

Newton freezes. He lifts his head. “Are you serious?”

“Only if we are _discreet_ ,” Hermann repeats. He doubts the truth behind a sudden dual flight will be much of a mystery to anyone, least of all to Father (who remains, Hermann is certain, suspicious about the exact nature of Hermann’s relations with the young man from town to this day), but Hermann would like to strive towards some illusion of privacy. “But—yes. Yes, I am quite serious. Do you object?”

“ _No_ ,” Newton says. He has dimples, Hermann notices, when he smiles as wide as he does now. “I do _not_ object.”

Hermann steals a kiss this time, long and lazy. He adjusts Newton’s glasses and lets his hand linger on his cheek. Rough and unshaven as always. “You ought to be going back to your rooms. What if someone were to stop by tomorrow morning, and—?”

Newton sighs, dimples and smile vanishing and being quickly replaced with a sad little twist of a frown. “I _guess_ ,” he says. “Can’t we just—?”

Another kiss; this one makes him far more amenable to what Hermann has to say, and he chases it with a grunting, rumbling moan. “You’re the worst,” he says, but slips from the bed to his bare feet.

Hermann watches him stoop to gather his clothing, smile creeping onto his own face. “I’ll send for you ‘round noon,” he says. “I imagine I’ll wish for your assistance in classifying a _very_ particular piece of moss I found growing on a pebble near the pond yesterday, and that it should take us most—if not all—of the afternoon.” Newton’s gorgeous chest disappears beneath his nightshirt, his nicely—er— _taut_ backside beneath the matching cotton trousers. Tragic. “And it is imperative, of course,” he adds, “that we not be disturbed.”

“Right-o,” Newton says. “How do I look?”

He turns and thrusts out his arms.

“Your eyeglasses are crooked,” Hermann says.

“They’re always crooked,” Newton says. “I _mean_ do I look like I just thoroughly _ravished_ a gentleman of the house or not?”

Hair sticking up in the back—lazy, self-satisfied slump to his shoulders—lips still kiss-bruised—trousers open— “You couldn’t look any _more_ like it,” Hermann says.

“Perfect,” Newton says. Then, teasingly, with a wink that has Hermann’s heart fluttering quite pathetically, “See you tomorrow, Dr. Gottlieb.”

He waltzes out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> if u want more historical newmann hijinks be sure to check out the historical AU zine i have a piece in over on twitter!
> 
> find me on tumblr at hermannsthumb, twitter at hermanngaylieb, and 18+ twitter at hermanngayszler!


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